a livid flare
Through shrouding mist; and all things there
Moved like grim shades in hell.

The hammer's clamp on resonant steel;
The siren's shriek; the scream and whirr
Reverberant from forge and wheel;
The fury and the clangorous stir
And plunge of traffic; Vulcan's heel
Crashing on iron,--and the reel
Of sense at loss of _her_.--

None guessed when, playfully, she said,
With smile that brightened toward her dead,
"To-day across the world I ride
To meet a bridegroom, I the bride."
They thought her mischief lied.

Around us was the deafening roar,
A void, a wild and drear eclipse.
A sadder sweetness than before
Shook her pale, smiling lips;
She waved adieu through vapours hoar,
And vanished in the shadows frore
Among the heedless ships ...
In that dread lapse of all farewell
The spirit, listening, plain could tell
That devils laughed in drifting hell
With guile upon their lips ...

The world seemed all a hollow ghost
That would dissolve away;
And life itself a random boast
Of elements at play;
And time a swift elusive gleam,
And man the mockery of a dream,
A foam-bell to a moment's beam
Flung from the spray.

I had worshipped her with sacred sighs,
Loved with the love that wondereth;
My life had found her maiden-wise,
And sweeter than the rose's breath;
Lit by a soul in paradise
The lights within her holy eyes,
The lady loved of death ...

Bereft, forlorn, by passion driven,
And blanched with loss, by suffering riven,
With impious heart I fled from Heaven ...

Thought like a frost gripped all the brain:
With frozen tears opprest,
The conscious blood with sullen pain
Lunged at the callous breast,
Where hope and love, a pallid twain,
Sat with a ghoul for guest.

Over the watery wastes I fled
Where'er dim desolation led
Beneath sad sun and moon!
For faith was dead, and joy was dead,
And love was where the phantoms tread,
And bitterness was passion's bread:
"Grant, jester Death," I, laughing, said,
"Thy haggard fool a boon!" ...

And unforgiving, unforgiven,
A derelict, by tempest driven,
I drave beneath the breadth of heaven ...

Grim sorrow fell on all things fair;
To dust was turned the lover's breath